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Slow Cooker Baked Potatoes With Broccoli and Cheese Sauce

| Easy Weeknight Meals, Main Courses, Recipes, Vegetarian

Slow cooker baked potatoes piled high with broccoli and a glorious cheddar cheese sauce. Perfect for Meatless Mondays!

Cheese sauce being poured over broccoli and a slow cooker baked potato.

Welcome to our March blog series. After January salads and February soups, we’re tackling something I’m a little less comfortable with, Meatless Monday meals.

I love the idea of Meatless Monday. I think it can be hugely impactful on your health, your wallet, and the environment. But in practice, I’m pretty terrible at it.

The recipes you’ll see featured here this month are most of the vegetarian recipes (that aren’t some form of mac and cheese) that I would consider tried and true in my recipe file.

This is good for you, because it means they are all 100 percent meat-eater approved and delicious, but says something sad about me considering I was vegan for nearly a year in college (I lived on oreos and vegan hot dogs).

Slow cooker baked potato with broccoli and cheese sauce on a white plate.

Our first recipe is a comfort classic with a convenience twist, Slow Cooker Baked Potatoes With Broccoli and Cheese Sauce. Baked potatoes are a great base for Meatless Mondays, because who doesn’t like potatoes? Unfortunately, their long cooking time can make them impractical for busy weeknights.

Guess what? Problem solved.

Did you know you can cook potatoes in a slow cooker!? Turns out, toss those things in the slow cooker in the morning, set to low, and by the time you are home in the evening, they are perfectly cooked and ready to eat.

That means that for this recipe, all you have to do before eating is boil some broccoli and make the quick and easy cheese sauce, and you have your Meatless Monday meal on the table in like 20 minutes.

And oh, that cheese sauce, once you taste it, you’ll be seeing it in your dreams. It’s creamy, tangy and loaded with sharp cheddar and cayenne.

Pile your potato high with broccoli and then smother that thing in this glorious cheese sauce and you’ll completely forget that this Monday meal is meatless!

Baked potato topped with broccoli and cheddar cheese sauce.

More Easy Weeknight Meals

Baked potato topped with broccoli and cheddar cheese sauce.

Slow Cooker Baked Potatoes With Broccoli and Cheese Sauce

Slow cooker baked potatoes piled high with broccoli and a glorious cheddar cheese sauce. Perfect for Meatless Mondays!
5 from 2 votes
Print Pin
Course: Dinner
Cuisine: American
Total Time: 8 hours 5 minutes
Servings (Hover or Click to Change Yield): 4
Calories: 498kcal
Author: Tracy

Ingredients

Special Tools or Equipment

Baked Potatoes

  • 4 medium baking potatoes scrubbed and dried
  • Cooking spray or olive oil
  • Salt

Topping

  • 1 1/2 pounds broccoli florets cut into bite-sized pieces

Cheese Sauce

  • 2 tablespoons butter
  • 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
  • 1 1/2 cups milk
  • 1 1/2 cup (6oz) sharp cheddar cheese shredded
  • 1/4 teaspoon cayenne
  • Salt and pepper

Instructions

Baked Potatoes

  • Poke potatoes 5-6 times each with a fork.
  • Lay a sheet of foil down on the counter. Place a potato in the center and spray with cooking spray or drizzle in olive oil, turning to coat. Sprinkle with salt and close foil. Repeat with other potatoes. Place all potatoes in the slow cooker and cook on low for 8-10 hours. They will be done in 8, but should be fine if cooked for up to 10 hours.

Broccoli

  • Bring a medium pot of lightly salted water to a boil. Add broccoli and cook until tender 3-5 minutes. Drain and cover to keep warm. Set aside.

Cheese Sauce

  • In a medium pot, melt butter over medium heat. Whisk in flour and cook until flour is lightly golden, stirring constantly, about 1 minute.
  • Slowly add in milk, whisking continuously so no lumps form. Continue to whisk and cook over medium heat until mixture is thick and bubbly, 4-5 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in cheese, cayenne, salt and pepper.
  • Slice open the tops of the potatoes and pile with broccoli. Top with cheese sauce.

Notes

If you have an older slow cooker (10+ years), your potatoes may take longer than 8 hours. I did a test batch of these in ancient cooker and they required 9 hours of cooking time.
Did you make this recipe?I'd love to see it! Tag @BakingMischief or hashtag it #BakingMischief.

Nutritional Information
Recipe Adapted From: ToriAvey.com

Make-ahead Instructions: Sauce should be prepared just before serving, but cheese can be shredded, broccoli cut, and potatoes cooked up to two days in advance.
Recipe For Two Instructions: Recipe halves cleanly. 1/2 of 1 tablespoon is 1 1/2 teaspoons.
Freezer Notes: I don’t recommend this dish for freezing. Potatoes and cheesy sauces don’t hold up fantastically in the freezer.

This post may contain affiliate links, which means I receive a small commission if you make a purchase using them. There is absolutely no additional cost to you.

Comments

  1. Jeni White says

    5 stars
    I’ve looked for a recipe for cheese sauce before. I had found one, and vowed to never use it again, or any other. I’d actually figured I’d just stick to using Cheddar cheese soup.

    Considering the success I’ve had with your recipes, and had the ingredients for this sauce, I tried it last night, with cauliflower, as I mentioned.

    I am happy to report that I’m THRILLED with this cheese sauce recipe. I even had enough for a second meal!!

    Thank you so much, Tracy!!

    Reply

  2. Jeni White says

    5 stars
    Hi, Tracy! I found this recipe, and though I’ve previously mentioned that I have a large family, I’m the only one who loves baked potatoes with toppings! Only change I’m going to make is that I prefer cauliflower.

    I did have one question, however. I cannot eat anything spicy, due to ulcers. Is there something I can use in place of the cayenne?

    Thank you again, I’ll be using the chicken breast for salads and sandwiches very soon!

    Reply

    • Tracy says

      Hi, Jeni. You can just omit the cayenne completely. It doesn’t dramatically alter the taste of the sauce, just gives a little kick, so omitting it won’t change much. Hope you enjoy the potatoes and cauliflower!

      Reply

  5. Tamara says

    I love this post, Tracy! I’ve never tried cooking potatoes in the slow-cooker… Great idea! We’re trying to do #meatlessmonday for all the same reasons. I’m glad you’re focusing on that in March 🙂

    Reply
5 from 2 votes

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